The Fed­er­al Com­mu­nic­a­tions Com­mis­sion voted Thursday to move ahead with a pro­pos­al to re­quire cell-phone car­ri­ers to provide more ac­cur­ate in­form­a­tion about the loc­a­tion of 911 calls.

Tele­phone com­pan­ies already have to in­form 911 call cen­ters about the loc­a­tion of land­line callers, and there are also fed­er­al stand­ards to en­sure that emer­gency re­spon­ders can find cell-phone callers when they are out­doors. But there are cur­rently no re­quire­ments for loc­a­tion ac­cur­acy for in­door 911 cell-phone callers.

With more than 70 per­cent of 911 calls now com­ing from cell phones, poor loc­a­tion in­form­a­tion is mak­ing it in­creas­ingly dif­fi­cult for of­fi­cials to re­spond to emer­gen­cies. Find­ing a caller in­side of a large multistory build­ing is a par­tic­u­lar prob­lem, the com­mis­sion found.

The pro­pos­al would re­quire car­ri­ers to loc­ate 911 callers with­in 50 meters of their loc­a­tion ho­ri­zont­ally and with­in three-meter ver­tic­ally, which would es­sen­tially al­low emer­gency re­spon­ders to know which floor of a build­ing the call was com­ing from.

The car­ri­ers would have to meet the ho­ri­zont­al stand­ard ac­cur­acy for 67 per­cent of calls with­in two years and 80 per­cent of calls with five years. The car­ri­ers would have three years to meet the ver­tic­al ac­cur­acy re­quire­ment for 67 per­cent calls and five years for 80 per­cent of calls.

Ajit Pai and Mi­chael O’Re­illy, the two Re­pub­lic­ans on the five-mem­ber com­mis­sion, ap­plauded the new stand­ards but wor­ried that the com­mis­sion was set­ting an un­real­ist­ic timeline.

“Car­ri­ers can­not be­gin to de­ploy a tech­no­logy solu­tion that does not yet ex­ist,” Pai said. “And the pub­lic should not be led to rely on a prom­ise that can­not be kept.”

CTIA, the lob­by­ing group for cell-phone car­ri­ers, said its com­pan­ies “stand ready to work” with the com­mis­sion but urged the agency to pur­sue “re­quire­ments that are groun­ded in veri­fied data, not as­pir­a­tion­al tar­get”‘set­ting.”

FCC Chair­man Tom Wheel­er had little sym­pathy for the Re­pub­lic­an and in­dustry con­cerns.

“Hey, we’re deal­ing with hu­man life,” he said.

Wheel­er ar­gued that it’s “nev­er wrong to over­reach” on pub­lic safety, but he said the com­mis­sion will re­main flex­ible if tech­no­lo­gic­al prob­lems arise.

The FCC will re­view com­ments on the pro­pos­al be­fore vot­ing on fi­nal reg­u­la­tions.

The com­mis­sion ad­vanced the pro­pos­al after Demo­crat­ic Rep. Anna Eshoo and Re­pub­lic­an Rep. John Shimkus sent a let­ter to the agency last month call­ing for bet­ter loc­a­tion ac­cur­acy on 911 calls.

"Chuck Rosenberg, the acting head of the Drug Enforcement Agency who has found himself and his agency at odds with the Trump administration in recent months, told staff members Tuesday that he is planning to step down from his post." The Obama administration holdover will step down on October 1.

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HAD BEGUN TO PUBLICLY CRITICIZE TRUMP

Sen. Corker to Retire

1 hours ago

THE DETAILS

Another Republican member of Congress is showing himself out the door. After much thought, consideration and family discussion over the past year, Elizabeth and I have decided that I will leave the United States Senate when my term expires at the end of 2018,” said Sen. Bob Corker in a statement. The Tennessean has served since 2006.

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NOT ILLEGAL, BUT MUST BE FORWARDED TO WORK ACCOUNTS

At Least 6 WH Advisors Used Private Email Accounts

1 hours ago

THE LATEST

Jared Kushner, Stephen Bannon, Reince Priebus, Gary Cohn, Stephen Miller, and Ivanka Trump sent or received some emails on personal accounts that related to White House business. "Officials are supposed to use government emails for their official duties so their conversations are available to the public and those conducting oversight. But it is not illegal for White House officials to use private email accounts as long as they forward work-related messages to their work accounts so they can be preserved."

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SAYS CONTACTS WERE “BENIGN”

Stone Releases Correspondence with Guccifer 2.0

1 hours ago

THE LATEST

"Roger Stone, a longtime friend and adviser to Donald Trump, released correspondence Tuesday" with the online hacker known as Guccifer 2.0 , which "U.S. intelligence agencies said was used by Russian government-linked entities to distribute embarrassing information about Democrats during the 2016 election. The disclosures came in a 47-page opening statement made available to reporters in advance of Mr. Stone’s Tuesday appearance in front of the House Intelligence Committee." Stone called his contacts with Guccifer "limited" and "benign."

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PRIEBUS, SPICER, HICKS, MCGAHAN

Mueller Could Start Interviewing White House Figures This Week

1 hours ago

THE LATEST

"Special counsel investigators could start interviewing current and former White House staff as soon as later this week regarding the Russian probe, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN. One source cautioned it is still being worked out with Robert Mueller's office and said it might be delayed until next week." Among those who could have a sit-down with the special prosecutor: former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former press secretary Sean Spicer, communications director Hope Hicks, White House counsel Don McGahn, communications adviser Josh Raffel and associate counsel James Burnham.